


Lilacs

by speakmefair



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Brothers, Flashbacks, Gen, PTSD, Sociopathy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-25
Updated: 2014-01-25
Packaged: 2018-01-09 23:07:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 660
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1151883
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/speakmefair/pseuds/speakmefair
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mycroft and his demons.  And hope.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lilacs

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hitlikehammers](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hitlikehammers/gifts).



_Winter kept us warm, covering_  
 _Earth in forgetful snow, feeding_  
 _A little life with dried tubers._

 

He's never stood in judgement against his brother. He only ever decides what is best for him; what he can deal with, what he should be forced to deal with, what will keep him safe.

And then Sherlock uses the word _appall_ and that – is worse than a thousand inaccuracies, a hundred badly-chosen and soon-to-perish goldfish.

High or not, his brother has the capacity to take out Moriarty. Magnussen. The Government.

He does not use the word lightly. Appall, the word lilting and chasing after its own consonants. _Appall_. 

_don't appall me..._

Was that a plea?

No. That is not how they operate.

No.

The fact is this – the fact is that --

that to call someone appalling is not something one would choose for one-upmanship, or a moment's amusement.

But he used it on Mycroft.

Sherlock used it on Mycroft.

**

He knows what Sherlock is. He's known it all his life, how could he not?

He never saw that first and calculating breath taken, never saw that red-purple skin beneath mucus-slimed proof of life begin to pale into humanity, but he still knows.

Sociopath is an easy analysis, and easy is a word that grates and slides all at once against Mycroft's tongue, against the roof of his mouth, worse than cooling lamb fat from the inferior chops at the Club.

He knows what his little brother is, and he's never come in on the side of burgeoning solipsism.

With his face pressed to the wall, and his arm aching with a new and worsening burn in its joints, though, he knows he has always forgotten that easy little rider of a clever tongue.

 _don't appall me when I'm high,_ says Sherlock.

 _don't even talk when you've let me down,_ hears Mycroft.

**

There's a child in the hallway and a child on the patio, and a child who trusted Mycroft and a child Mycroft scorned.

There are tears and never pleas, only salt-silent accusations

 _don't appall me when I'm high_ \--

There's a dog with long red hair and _Irish setter_ Mycroft calls it accurately, and _Redbeard_ , Sherlock names it, and Mummy never knows about the article Mycroft read, about how they need to run four or five miles every exercise period to keep healthy.

He wishes he'd told Sherlock, when Redbeard starts to bite, and snarl, and has to be put down.

_don't appall me when I'm --_

**

There's a gun in John Watson's pocket and a cold snap in the autumn air, and the world is burning. The world is burning.

There's explosives in a train carriage and a timer a fool could defeat and Sherlock is lost and pleading for something Mycroft doesn't want to understand.

But there's a fire and a black knight and a maiden fair and war-like as Spencer's Britomart, and there's burning to be done, to all of them, into all of them, the heart of all of them --

There's only one man who has that love of coruscation.

Mycroft hasn't let him go yet.

The world still stands even after that night.

But Mycroft knows, and counts dayshoursminutes. Counts even seconds, and never the odds (he doesn't calculate odds), he breathes two-to-four-to-six (breathe with me), makes them stretch, clutches at reprieve.

He knows.

He knows.

Gotterdammerung is coming.

** 

There's a child and a man on the patio and there's everything Mycroft never wanted for Sherlock to know, waiting outside sliding glass doors, and it's John's gun and Sherlock's finger –

And there's a boy in the hallway and a boy crying –

And there's a man whom he appalls and a brother who chokes on cigarette smoke at the thought of love and care –

_and a little green-eyed idol to the north of Kathmandu..._

And Mycroft knows now what he has made.

_Perfection._

And the gun fires.

And the man falls.

And the child smiles.

And so does Mycroft Holmes.

**Author's Note:**

> I believe in Mycroft Holmes.


End file.
